PR agencies who do their homework will win and keep more clients, says Pickanews

A media search engine that enables agency PROs to track online as well as printed coverage is being heralded by the developer as an answer to retaining and winning more clients.

The Pickanews search engine from the Press Index Group allows users to track coverage for current and prospective clients free of charge and even features an alert function.

Manuel Zebeida, CEO of Pickanews says, “We have seen anecdotal evidence that when agencies do their homework, they tend to win and keep more business. At a time when many PR agencies are desperately seeking any competitive edge to both retain clients and win new business, this is a crucial tool in the armoury of the agency.”

Pickanews is designed to provide easy access to a broader range of both relevant and high quality media coverage. The Pickanews search engine technology enables key phrase filters to improve the relevancy and quality of search results. Search criteria are intuitive and produce objective results by country, media type, circulation, date and themes.

The combination of relevancy, quality and control provides cost savings by allowing self selection, when compared to traditional media monitoring and clippings services. Pickanews saves time through its aggregation of multi-media coverage. In addition it offers the reassurance of transparency through the breadth of coverage on offer.

The Pickanews service can be used at three different levels. Self select media searches are free. Users can then set up key phrase searches to create their own automated daily Pickanews alerts service, also free of charge. Finally, the Pickanews premium service provides subscribers with an automated daily media monitoring service based on selected criteria. Sourced articles are displayed in a highly contextual and visual manner on the user’s “MyPickanews” platform. These services enable the user to review headlines and lead copy before selecting the articles they wish to purchase. This can be done on a pay as you go basis.